The Twilight Zone

Epilogue

It took a long time to find anything on the TARDIS, especially when the Doctor's memory was shot. But, after at least three hours of wandering, searching, begging the ship to point her in the right direction, she finally retrieved the item she was looking for. An old cluster of pale, yellowish coral, one of the few things she had managed to rescue when Arcadia fell. It was this she carried back through the winding corridors, which had shifted to make her return journey a little quicker, now pursuing something else entirely: her daughter.

Ravenwood was elsewhere – visiting Sally Sparrow in London to talk about vampire stuff – which meant Jenny, more likely than not, would be in the high-tech gym she had designed herself from scratch. Jenny's room designs were, in the Doctor's opinion, very hit or miss. She hugely disliked the new console room, though part of that might be simply because she had forbidden Jenny from modifying it and she'd made a new one anyway (retiring the Doctor's far superior console room to the back-catalogue) – but the gym was interesting. It may have a shooting range, which the Doctor wasn't too fond of, but it had plenty of more intriguing bells and whistles. That night she found Jenny fifty feet in the air walking across a tightrope with her hands.

"Y'know," she called up, "I understand how tightrope walking can come in handy, but not why you need to do a handstand at the same time."

"You're just jealous because you can't do it," Jenny responded from on high. The Doctor held the coral behind her back, out of sight.

"Don't think you get all your talents from thin air," she joked. She thought she saw Jenny smile as she reached one of the two, tall platforms of the tightrope, standing back up properly.

"Did you want something?"

"I have something to show you, if you come down from there." Perplexed, Jenny climbed down the ladder, the Doctor waiting at the bottom. She lightly jumped the last few feet to the floor. "Haven't you mastered that by now?"

"Maybe. Can't get complacent, though – what if I need it in a bind, and then I've lost it? I was thinking of learning how to surf, though."

"I once went lava surfing. Not for fun, there was this thing. With the Sontarans. But that's not important – if you do want to surf, plenty of people do in Brighton. I could come with you."

"I thought Clara doesn't let you in the sea?"

"I've spent the entire day in the sea. She'll let me if I work on her for a few months."

"That's too much information. What did you want?"

"I found this for you," she took out the large chunk of coral and held it towards Jenny, who stared at it.

"Did you pick that up today? I don't get it."

"No, it's TARDIS coral, I saved a few pieces before… well, you know. I gave one to Jack a long time ago, but… that was before you came along. And I was there today, with my old… compatriot, and it made me think that… maybe someone should be trying to preserve the good parts of Gallifreyan culture, instead of all the superiority and the god complexes and whatever else. And this might be part of that."

Jenny took the coral, still confused, "So it's… what is it, exactly? Coral from a TARDIS?"

"We grew them," she explained, "It's been modified to increase the growth rate. Keep an eye on it, and in maybe five hundred years, you'll have your own TARDIS."

"Five hundred years?"

"It usually takes upward of ten-thousand years to grow a machine like this, Jenny," the Doctor advised, sensing minor disappointment. "I know you have a spaceship of your own already, so maybe this is more of a gesture, but… what's a Time Lord without a TARDIS?"

"I… thank you." Jenny hugged her with one arm, the other holding the lump of coral. "Or, maybe I should save my thanks for five hundred years' time?"

She laughed, "You're very welcome. Now, what's say we go eat that barnacle I brought you back? Unless you have to practice walking up and down in a straight line some more?"

"I have some very interesting ideas about how to prepare the barnacle, actually."

"And why do I suspect they involve a deep fat fryer?"

"It's the best way to eat seafood."

"Well, lead the way. I can't wait to try whatever you come up with."

Jenny beamed, coral in her arms, as they left the gym.